I told myself I’d be skipping this generation 6 altogether…. 6 months later, I’m sucked back in ORZ Although honestly, in great part due to Inazuma’s hiatus and Twitchplayspokemon. If there’s one thing I appreciate about Pokemon franchise, it’s the maintained value that your Pokemon have over the growing generations. For X and Y, it’s very awesome that all the languages are available regardless of region, EXCEPT that you’re stuck with one language per cartridge that you pick when you first start-up the game… le sigh.

I got myself a cheap used copy of Black for $25 that came with a completed game so that I could import my Pokemon from my older generations to X/Y. I’m glad that my D/P team is still able to tear up Pokemon in the Battle Maison. Getting my BP up.Story:Characters:Graphics: The 3D transition looks great! It’s great seeing the variety of motion all the Pokemon display.Sound: The music is a DEFINITE improvement from the DS generation. I’ve always had issues with the BGMs in Pokemon since the GBA generation. Stuff was catchy, but something about how everything was synthesized did not settle well with my ears in the long run. DS made things a little easier to listen to, but still did not match up with the classics of the Gameboy generation. Those bad synthesizing issues are pretty much gone with the 3DS version with the full-scale of music instruments available. And the newer composers do a good job with it.Gameplay:Replay Value:Overall: 9.
Things I’m appreciating about this generation:
-Exp. Share works for the entire team and isn’t a hold item (some folks moan that this breaks the game, makes it too easy whatever… but I don’t care for the grind during the story. I want to get to the post-game material asap so this is very welcome to me)
-Getting Exp even when capturing Pokemon (finally)
-Pokemart inside the Pokecenter (I realize this was done in earlier generations, but the layout is better in this generation)

Things I wish would still be improved (and why I scored down from a perfect rating):
-Run should be the default motion, and holding B should be walk. At least skates/bikes are allowed in most places anyway so it’s not much of a problem to get places, but especially for the places that don’t allow skates/bike =3=…
-Daily NPCs are all over the freaking map in various houses, and the animation for Fly takes too long to bother with everything. A big waste of time. Makes the post-story gameplay a big hassle.
-I guess they’ll never get rid of this, but the reliance on HMs to get around places has always been a hassle for me post-game. Would be nice to be able to go around without having to constantly carry multiple Pokemon with handicapped moves (with exceptions of Surf… and only Surf really)…
-Timed events. Just no. Elements of a yucky social game in a game I paid full price for.